Human
by thestarkeeper
Summary: After priority: Thessia Thessia fell. Shepard stands her ground, holds up against the Asari councilor, withholds Anderson telling her to shake things off and manages to answer politely when Traynor mentions just another facility attacked by Cerberus. When Joker tells about his family on Tiptree though, the hairline crack inside her breaks.


**After priority: Thessia**

Thessia fell. Shepard stands her ground, holds up against the Asari councilor, withholds Anderson telling her to shake things off and manages to answer politely when Traynor mentions just another facility attacked by Cerberus. When Joker tells about his family on Tiptree though, the hairline crack inside her breaks.

 **Human**

Thessia fell. The Asari home world burned, like Palaven did before, like Earth. Another world lost. Another one annihilated. Another planet she left for dead.

The prothean data was lost. The Crucible could not be finished. She failed. Miserably.

And Kai Leng won. _Cerberus_ won, after all they went through.

But Shepard stood her ground.

She held up against the Asari councilor while the news about her home world caught her absolutely off-guard. She managed to give her crew a somewhat targeted speech that didn't show the brutal anger and deadly emptiness Thessia had left her with. She withheld Anderson telling her to shake things off and get over it, concentrating on what had to be done next. She even forced herself to a professional answer when everything Traynor had to say when she rushed through the CIC was that she located another facility attacked by Cerberus on Ontarom they should check out later.

 _Get the job done. Whatever happens, simply get the job done. And the next one. And the one after that. And the one..._

She kept the hairline crack together when EDI started some kind of stupid joke to cheer her up on the bridge, making it even more obvious what had just happened. She had never heard EDI joking before and she was all but in the mood to make that experience right now. She reacted more sharp then she should, both to EDI and Joker when he dared to voice some kind of light-footed comment on Asari dancers.

But when he told about his family on Tiptree, the crack inside her broke.

She managed to respond politely after he'd told her that he, and EDI, and Anderson, and obviously everybody else was worried about her. She thanked him, told him they should get back to work and left.

 _Tiptree._

On her way down she rushed into Tali who told her that it was not her fault. They would stop Kai Leng, and Cerberus, and the Reaper. They would follow her because she was the one who was right. The one who fought when no one else believed in victory. Shepard could hardly pull herself together. How should she believe in victory? She gave Tali no more than monosyllabic answers, making their talk as short as possible. Victory...

For a moment she thought about going to Garrus but she would not stand a single more ' it's not your fault, Commander'.

 _Palaven._

She knew she would not be able to stand the emptiness of her too huge too quiet too Cerberus cabin so she headed towards the only place on this ship that used to give her peace in times like these. At least somehow.

 _Thessia._

When the elevator doors closed behind her with that typical hissing sound - a sound that felt way too loud in her ears in that very moment - Cortez turned around with a surprised face. "Is everything okay, Shepard?" He didn't expect her to come down again before they'd reach Sanctuary.

 _Earth._

He'd meant well with her and she knew it but all she was able to respond was a barely friendly "Get me the Kodiak down."

Cortez looked even more surprised but kept it to himself and followed her orders. "We're going on another trip, ma'am?"

"Did I say we'd do?"

Her sharp voice echoed through the shuttle bay. Vega looked up from his work bench, unfamiliar with hearing the commander talking to Cortez in that harsh manner. He took some steps closer ignoring what would be a respectful distance. There were another two crew members working at the back of the shuttle bay who didn't have to notice everything that was going on right now. He stopped next to Shepard.

"Hey Commander, Esteban and I didn't expect your visit here soon again. What you doin' here?"

"Calibrations!" She sounded even more upset upset than the moment before, not even giving Vega the smallest glance.

"You what-?"

"Just _don't_ talk to me now, lieutenant!" Her tone didn't tolerate any backtalk.

Vega shot an irritated glance at Cortez. When the shuttle reached ground, Shepard went in without any further comment. Cortez waited until she was out of hearing, then he turned to Vega worth a miserable look. "I know she's the commander and I shouldn't complain, but is she _really_ going to do some calibrations on the Kodiak?"

Vega shrugged, still staring behind Shepard. "She's the commander, Esteban. If she wants to do calibrations, she will do calibrations. Complain or not."

Inside of the Kodiak, Shepard hardly managed to get to the main controls.

Tiptree fell. Palaven fell. Thessia fell. Earth would fall as well.

Everybody was involved.

She started the engine, running some protocols, staring at the flickering numbers in front of her starting to blur.

There was no way of winning this war.

Everybody was losing.

* * *

"Hey Scars, can you you come to the shuttle bay? Like: Now?"

"What's up, Vega? I'm in the middle of some-"

"Calibrations, _maldito_! What the fuck you guys have with calibrating all the time?" That left alone was enough to get Vega back upset. He might not have been on Thessia himself but he knew how loss felt like. He could very well imagine the state Shepard was in right now - hell he could hear and see it - and that turian bastard was not going to fob him off with some bloody calibrations-comment. "It's about Shepard, 'kay? Get your ass down here!"

"What about her?" Even Vega heard the obvious concern in Garrus' subharmonics. "She okay?"

"If she was okay, I wouldn't call you. I mean, physically, she seems fine. But she's crying. And she won't stop. Man, I'm serious! I've never ever seen her cry, and now she won't stop no matter what I say, it's fucking scary. Not just a little. She's having some serious breakdown or something. She just sits and cries, and she sounds like choking. Again, get your ass down here and bring Chakwas with you. I don't know what to do, Scars. Figured out she would rather respond to you, hopefully." Vega had talked a mile a minute.

Garrus didn't need more. "On my way."

Vega looked at Shepard, who still say on the ground of the Kodiak and inhaled frantically between two heartbreaking sobs. "Hey, Lola..." He reached for her and tenderly touched her shoulder but she just cried out more desperate, covering her face with both arms. Vega didn't know how to handle a woman crying, let alone his superior – _the_ Commander Shepard – crying in front of him. That was one situation he had never imagined to be trapped in. Cortez kept his distance, withdrawing when Vega tried to take care of Shepard. He knew Vega was far more close to the commander than he was and it didn't seem right for him to just stand and watch as it was something he wouldn't want either. But it seemed Vega just drew a blank as well.

"Come on, Lola. As a leader, you've got a job to do, that's what you told me. It's not your job to keep everybody alive. It's your job to get the job done. What happened on Thessia's not your fault and it won't end this war." He meant well but his words hardly made anything better at that point.

 _The job's not done!_ , she wanted to yell at him. _The Asari died, Thessia fell and the fucking job's not done!_ Still, all she could do was crying her heart out, bursting in one series of convulsive coughs after the other. She wanted to stop, wanted to end that show of weakness, wanted to get back on her feet, but the tears just wouldn't stop.

It could have taken them barely two of three minutes but to Vega it felt like an hour until Garrus and Dr. Chakwas arrived at the shuttle bay.

Garrus' first reaction was an unfriendly bark he sent in Vegas direction. "What have you done?"

Vega got up and crossed his arms defensively. "Nothing, _pendejo_!"

For a moment, both men were looking daggers at each other. Chakwas watched the scene for some time, eyeing one man after another. Then she killed their little dispute off. "I don't think blaming each other is of much help now." If the situation wasn't so sad, Chakwas would probably have laughed because it looked more than hilarious seeing the biggest marine and the deadliest Turian she knew both more than obviously helpless over a woman crying. She didn't laugh though. Instead, she sidelined Vega, turning to Shepard. "She'll be fine, Garrus. But she won't be if you two are just standing around staring her down, gentlemen. Never seen a girl cry?" When she turned around, darting a short glance at Vega and Garrus, she couldn't resist sighing. Both of them indeed looked scared enough to suggest they hadn't seen a girl cry before. At least not Shepard. "She's okay", Chakwas repeated empathically.

"You can hardly call _that_ okay." Garrus subharmonics kept clear but Chakwas could tell by the way his mandibles were pressed to his jaw how distracted and concerned he was.

"Actually, that is very normal human behavior, Garrus. It's just not welcomed for someone like her."

"Yeah, 'cause she's Commander _fucking_ Shepard, right?" Vega sounded as bitter and frustrated as Chakwas felt. It made him angry seeing Shepard like that. Angry and helpless. It had been his turn to look after her ever since he was assigned as her watch-dog like she had always called him back on Earth, and he had never stopped considering it as his duty to look after her ever since. Maybe she didn't need that (she never missed a chance to tell him she didn't) but some help couldn't hurt. But against this he couldn't protect her.

"Exactly, Lieutenant. And now you two feel dismissed. Your presence is not needed right now."

Her tone didn't tolerate any backtalk – in some way, she sounded exactly as Shepard had sounded half an hour ago, Vega thought. When Garrus made no move to follow the doctors orders, Vega grabbed his arm and pointed at the Kodiaks hatch. "Come on, Scars. She'll be alright." He didn't wait for the Turians approval when walking him out, but Garrus' resistance was less than he'd expected.

When both had left the shuttle, Chakwas sat next to Shepard and simply put her arms around the shaking woman for a very long time. As an Alliance doctor it might be her duty to keep the commander stable until all of this was over, but she also had a responsibility to Shepard herself. And right now, all she needed was comfort and someone telling her it would be alright. So she sat on the cold metal ground with her, holding her, stroking her head tenderly and spending comfort like the mother Shepard never had. "I know, love. It will be alright..."

Sometimes, Chakwas cursed the job she had taken with the position on the Normandy. It had been only a matter of time until Shepard would react like this: Having her guards down, not able to burden it anymore, if only for a while. That was one reason Hackett had ordered her to go back to the Normandy in the first place, even before Shepard had offered her the position: To make sure Shepard would be able to do this all, physically as well as mentally. To make sure she would be psychologically able to save the damned galaxy. Now that Chambers was gone, it was her turn to have a look at the crew. But Shepard was only a woman, Chakwas thought bitterly, patting the younger ones back. How was one single soldier, one single woman supposed to do this all? It was all too natural that she reacted like this at some point. Now it was her turn to fix that broken woman, but all she wanted to was to send her with Garrus into her cabin for the next week or so, with good company, a lot of good food and not a single interruption. She wanted her to heal, not to be fixed. She wanted to give her comfort, not some sedatives that would make her sleep as well as keep her mood balanced.

Shepard made some attempts to speak but failed to utter more than some stumbled scraps of words. She sobbed, leaning her head on Chakwas' shoulder. Breaking down like this made her feel unmasked and embarrassed, though her head was so dizzy and her body so tired, that she didn't really care about it. It would change the next day, though, she was sure.

Chakwas parted from Shepard, pushed her back gently and brushed a stray strand out of her face. "If I may I'd like to give you something to sleep, okay?" Shepard had calmed down in the last minutes all by herself but Chakwas wanted to make sure she'd get some real rest for the next hours as well. The fight on Thessia had left neither Garrus, Liara nor Shepard in their best state and her breakdown had exhausted her body as well, not to mention the mental exhaustion Shepard faced. Chakwas knew the commander had sleeping troubles as well so if it'd need her some drugs to sleep all through the night for once, she was willing to give them to her.

Shepard just nodded slightly. For this day, she had reached the point when she couldn't care for anything anymore, so she would do whatever the doc wanted her to do. When Chakswas helped her standing up and lead her out, she already felt the sedative's tiring effects starting.

Cortez and Vega had gone back to work and tried to pay as little attention to the women as possible knowing Shepard was in safe keeping with the doctor. When Chakwas realized, Garrus was still waiting outside the shuttle, leaning against the side of the weapon bench going through some reports on his omni-tool, she appreciated his intractability once again. She called him, instructing him to get there. When he reached them, she committed Shepard to his care. "Let her sleep as long as possible. Then I want to talk to her – _afterwards_ she can go back to work. Doctor's order."

Garrus nodded and eyed Shepard concerned with the result that Chakwas again assured him she'd be fine. He started to wonder how humans defined 'fine' after all, but kept quiet about it and gave Shepard a questioning look instead. "We go to your cabin?"

"Whatever", Shepard mumbled but didn't look up. Her posture looked collapsed, as if someone deprived her of all her energy and liveliness. Slowly and a little shaky she followed him, but she followed him at least.

He ushered her to her quarter without any further distraction, guided her into her bed and watched her curling up under her blanket just the second after. None of them spoke a single word. For a moment their looks met, Shepards just as tired as Garrus'. It felt as if she was searching something in his eyes, a quiet try of reaching out for him when neither her body nor her voice would obey her anymore. He leaned forward, reached for her hand and intertwined his fingers with hers. Her breathing got heavier when she closed her bloodshot eyes. Soon after, she fell asleep.

When he was sure she wouldn't wake up again, Garrus took some time to stretch his aching body. He had not quite recovered from the hits he had taken on Thessia, but that pain was nothing compared to seeing Shepard hurt like this. He knew she would not take it as fine as she always pretended and that it was only a matter of time. Nevertheless it had scared the shit out of him when he'd seen her like that in the Kodiak. She didn't deserve any of this. If he could relieve some of the burden off her shoulders, he would. But he knew, everything he could do now was to sit here and watch over her sleep for a while.

* * *

Waking up again felt like morning after shore leave. Shepard didn't exactly feel bad, just drained out and tired as hell. When she opened her eyes, they were burning and dry, but she didn't need that to remember the last day. She did not know how she ended up in her bed (Garrus, probably, or James), but she could well recall the rest of the day.

The mess inside her was lesser than some hours ago, though. Meds, it flashed through her mind. Maybe Eximo. She wouldn't blame Chakwas for it. Maybe she was even grateful for not being forced to face her feelings all at once anymore.

She stared at the cabins ceiling for some minutes, trying to harken to what was going on inside of her. But all that had driven her mad hours ago was nothing more than a fading, dump voice telling her she'd screwed up. Nothing she wouldn't know already. Nothing she couldn't take care of. She wasn't riven by grief anymore - or maybe she was but it had been banned again. Banned somewhere far away. She felt drained but not empty. Feeling that bland after what happened the day before felt somewhat wrong, still she was grateful. Grateful to not be left like that again alone here in her cabin. She preferred lying here in some state of being emotionless over that.

Shepard pushed herself to one elbow, rubbing her eyes with the other hand. She'd have to deal with that emptiness inside of her. Be Commander Shepard again. _Fail. Learn._ _Try again._ That's what Anderson had told her years ago. And she must not quit, if only for those left on earth, for those who relied on her.

She looked for her cloth and found them accurately folded to a square pile on the couch. It looked strange, the complete opposite of how she usually left her clothes at night. On top of that pile lay a datapad. She grabbed it and let herself flop to the bed again. Then she opened the message, not knowing what to expect. War reports, most likely. The same shit she read day after day. Her eyes flashed over the short message.

 _Shepard,_

 _Watched over your sleep last night. Wanted to be there when you wake up but had an incoming call from the General that couldn't wait. Meet me at the main battery when you're ready. But until, please stay in bed for additional ten minutes. Get something to eat. And go see the doctor before getting back to work - it'll redound on me if you don't._

 _You had me worried yesterday. No need to talk about it if you don't want. Just stop by for a sec._

 _We'll get those bastards. All of them._

 _Love, G_

Her stomach convulsed slightly reading his lines. The message dated about two hours ago, which meant she had slept for almost sixteen hours. He had been there almost the whole time, just sitting and waiting for her to sleep? She put the data pad next to her and rubbed her face again. No, those were no tears. She'd used them all last night. It was just... nothing. Obviously she _had_ slept that long and he _had_ been there the whole time. Part of her wished he would have really been there right now. She wanted to escape that whole hell for some moments at least, moments she would actually participate in, not some she overslept comatose. Then again, there was a war waiting. No need for her feelings.

It was back to business, like it or not. She grabbed the data pad and returned a short message.

 _Thanks for staying. Don't worry, I'm fine._

It was neither truth nor what she was supposed to say now, but she didn't want him to be worried about her. She'd be okay, doing her job, as always. She was sorry some of her crew had to witness her freakout yesterday. She wouldn't let it happen again.

* * *

When she went across the crew deck she thought about skipping the order to see the doctor for a moment. She had never been one for medics, but then again Chakwas was more than just some random medic and it wouldn't hurt so she headed towards the med bay after getting some late breakfast twenty minutes later. Chakwas looked up and sent a warm greeting when Shepard entered the lab.

"Good to see you, Commander. How are you doing?" She ordered her to have a seat and Shepard followed without backtalk.

"A little strange. Worn. But stable after all."

Chakwas nodded. "It was good you did relieve some of the stress yesterday, Shepard."

That was a polite way of putting her breakdown into words. Shepard appreciated it, though. It was the doctors way to tell her not to have any hard feelings about letting her guards down the way she had.

"Better than dealing with it on your own all the time." Now there was some strict rebuke again. "Let me check if the meds made you more than a little sleepy." She ran some diagnostics on her, gesturing her omni-tool in front of Shepards face and upper body. When she'd read the results, she looked pleased. "Better than I had expected, but that shouldn't have me wonder. I'd still prefer not to do that too often, though."

"Here's hoping, Doc." If it was up to Shepard, being drugged because of a nervous breakdown and crying like a helpless child was a once-off experience. "Still appreciated."

Chakwas nodded. "What are you going to do now?"

"Go and check for Liara. Guess things must have hit her pretty hard as well."

"Do so. It's good to have someone close to Liara check on her. But it's good as well if you let someone check on you from time to time, Reda." It was no doctor's advice, it was a friend's worry that spoke that moment.

Shepard kept silent for a moment and gave her a slight nod finally. "Guess it wouldn't hurt."

"They care for you, you know?" _We all do_ , she added silently.

Shepard stood up and stretched to drive away the last bits of weariness. When she turned to leave, Chakwas held her back.

"Shepard, I'm sorry."

No need to explain, Shepard knew what she was talking about. She shook her head. "No worries, Doc." Both knew Chakwas had done her job bringing the commander back. There was a war waiting that left no space for feelings like that, not for her. She was being needed. Chakwas was the one to make sure she could do. "All's well."

"Sure. But take the hands they offer. You're their commander, but they're your friends as well."

A slim smile set on Shepards face. "See you later, Doc." She straightened her shoulders, put the professional smile back again and walked out of the med bay.

There were still some hours until their arrival at Sanctuary. She'd have to check for Liara. Thank Traynor for tracking Kai Lengs signs to the Lera system. Do some pep talk with Adams and Kaidan as well as Vega and Cortez. And she'd go for Garrus, after all.

Maybe Thessia was lost.

Maybe Leng made it out once again.

But they would find him, and Cerberus, and the data.

They would build that crucible and they would destroy the Reaper.

Because they had to do.

 **Note:**

And suddenly, all those talks after Thessia make sense in my head. All of James' talk about being human, Shepards "word about your family"-question that seemed rather random and Garrus' reserved question of how Shepard's holding up. I just missed a proper reaction of the good doctor, so here we go. It just felt wrong that the first thing she'd said after Thessia was "you want to drink?" And because in my headcanon, what Chakwas says later about calling Shepard by his/her first name just makes no sense at all. D: So no to that scene, besides, my Shepard always saves that wine for victory.


End file.
